Recover data from full format on NTFS partition

Solution 1:

GetDataBack is a spectacular program that works on both FAT and NTFS. But it costs money, 80 dollars to be exact. It's completely worth it in my opinion, but maybe your looking for something free.

• Get Data Back

• Life hacker has a few ideas that you might try, but i haven't tried any of these.

However, no matter what you use you CANNOT install it on the same hard drive, even a different partition. Install it on another PHYSICAL hard drive and then try to recover it by copying the files to a separate drive than the one you are recovering.

Solution 2:

Before trying any recovery tool that you can find, or that will be suggested on that page, the first thing you have to do is an image of the partition you want to recover (with dd for instance, you'll find it in any serious linux distribution/liveCD). Then, use the recovery tool on the image you have just made, and not on your hard drive directly. It will prevent that you / your tool destroys accidentally your last chance to recover your data.